For Immediate Release:
In-process showing of “We are Still in Love” at Milvus Artistic Research Center.

What:
Milvus Artistic Research Center, (MARC) opens its doors this October with an In-process showing of the dance performance “We are Still in Love” with artists in residence Kenneth Bruun Carlson and Live Strugstad.

“We are still in love” is a collaboration with and by performer Live Strugstad and choreographer and performer Kenneth Bruun Carlson. Together with the audience the performers create new spaces and communities through close and intimate encounters.

By believing in the intelligent body and its ability to obtain and systematize information using somatic methods, the performers trace physical availabilities to achieve ecstatic and euphoric states of mind. They search for the stages/states of ecstasy and euphoria that give a heightened sense of awareness and an intensified physical experience, giving rise to extreme physical situations.

Where:
Milvus Artistic Research Center (MARC), Gladeholm, Kivik 27735
Parking is on site in the driveway. Please write to rtess@rachelvtess.org to reserve seats, as seating is limited. We will take reservations until 2pm the day of the performance.

When:
Thursday October 30th, 19.00-20.00
Admission is free.

About the Artists

Kenneth Bruun Carlson is a Norwegian freelance dancer and choreographer living and working in Sweden. He is a graduate from the London Contemporary Dance School (2000) and the Amsterdamse Hogeshool voor de Kunsten (2003). Carlson has been a member of Danish Dance Theater (DK), The Cullberg Ballet (SE), Kenneth Kvarnström & Co/Helsinki Dance Company (FI), and Skånes Dansteater (SE). He has worked with independent choreographers Marten Forsberg, Helena Franzen, Shumpei Nemoto, Björn Safsten, and Rachel Tess among others. His choreographic works have premiered in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and London. He is the recent recipient of a Norwegian Art Council project grant for the choreographic work “We are Still in Love” with dancer Live Strugstad and musician Stian Westerhus.

Live Strugstad is a Norwegian freelance dancer and choreographer based in Inderøy, Norway. She is a graduate from the London Contemporary Dance School (2000). She has performed with Smallpetitklein Dance Company in London. She has worked with independent choreographers Gustavo Lesgart, Annika Ostwald, Luis Della Mea and Susanne Rasmusen, and Tharan Revfem in Norway, among others. Her choreographic works have premiered in Norway and Sweden. She has performed in the Vancouver Children’s Festival as part of Teater Fot. Strugstad has initiated children’s projects, improvisation workshops, interdisciplinary works with film and music, choreographic development projects, and is a dance consultant at Dans i Nord-Trøndelag.

About the Center:

MARC is a platform where performance practices, working modes, and methodologies are questioned and new work is created and shared. MARC provides the opportunity for dance choreographers and practitioners to focus on specific research questions. MARC has an interest in interdisciplinary collaboration and welcomes other disciplines with a relationship to live performance to the center for residencies each year.

Contact:

For more information regarding “We are Still in Love”, press images, and MARC please write to artistic director Rachel Tess at rtess@rachelvtess.org.

We invite you to join us at Milvus Artistic Research Center, MARC, in Kivik for a special encounter with choreographer Peter Mills on Saturday October 18th, 2014.

When: 18.00-20.00 (please arrive on time or 15 minutes prior to event start)

Where:
Milvus Artistic Research Center, Gladeholm, Kivik 27735
parking is on site

RSVP:
Please RSVP to director Rachel Tess at rtess@rachelvtess.org. The workshop/dinner is limited to 20 people so it is important to RSVP.

What:

“Reflective Nebula”, with choreographer Peter Mills, is both an educational and artistic exploration of community.

Inclusion in a community shapes what one values and the choices one makes. A focus on the movements that shape these communities, micro and macro, can better inform us how and where our value is formed and shaped. “Reflective Nebula” is a two-part project hosted by Rachel Tess and Milvus Artistic Research Center in Kivik. The project employs reflective choreographic practices during encounters with specific communities to demonstrate how community functions and reveal how systems of value are produced.

During the 2 hour encounter we will dialogue over a simple meal served on site at MARC. After dinner we will perform creative tasks in a fast paced playful manner. We will work together, sharing a creative task or outcome and then copy each other with an emphasis on creativity itself, rather than form or skill. The exploration is guided by different means: verbal, kinesics, written and audio. We dance, act, paint, write, dream, observe, and respond. We spend time following different paths of creativity, asking ourselves “Where do we want to go?” and “What interests us?”

This encounter will be followed by a 48 hour performance in January, 2015 by Peter Mills and collaborators. We are pleased to invite you to see the beginnings of a creative process, and to engage in a project where your participation directly influences the choreographic outcome. Please join us for this unique opportunity.

Milvus Artistic Research Center, (MARC) opens its doors this July with a vernissage for artist Damien Gilley. As a MARC 2014 artist in residence, Gilley will present an immersive installation in the barn and gallery in Kivik.

When: Saturday July 19th, 18.00-22.00
Admission is free and we will serve refreshments and snacks on site
Artist Damien Gilley:

Damien Gilley (b. 1977, California) is an artist and educator working in Portland, Oregon. His work exposes hidden architectures through site-specific perceptual installations that combine drawing and sculptural approaches. Drawing influence from vintage computer graphics, techno-structures, and science fiction the work integrates digital languages with the physical world to question historical, current, and potential environments.

Damien holds a BFA in New Media, Suma Cum Laude, from the University of Nevada, an MFA in Contemporary Art Practice from Portland State University, and a BA in psychology and religious studies from the University of California Santa Barbara.

His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including Tetem Kunstruimte (Enschede, Netherlands), EastWest Project (Berlin, DE), Suyama Space (Seattle), The Belfry (Hornell, NY), Las Vegas Art Museum, Arthouse (Austin), the Art Museum of South Texas, and in Portland at Rocksbox, Linfield College, Wieden+Kennedy in collaboration with Rachel Tess, the American Institute of Architects, the Pacific Northwest College of Art, and the Portland 2010 Biennial, among others. Selected press includes a critic’s pick on Artforum.com, New American Paintings, Frame Magazine (Amsterdam), Las Vegas Review Journal, Seattle Weekly, The Oregonian, the Austin Chronicle, and online at designboom, ignant.de, juxtapose.com, and PORT. He has received multiple project grants from the Regional Arts & Culture Council and an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Oregon Arts Commission. He has held residencies at Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, ARE Enschede (Netherlands), and Crow’s Shadow Institute in Oregon. He is a member of the artistic panel that advises Milvus Artistic Research Center in Kivik, Sweden and will be residence there in July 2014 creating a site-specific installation.

Milvus Artistic Research Center (MARC):

With one indoor studio/performance space, living accommodations, and an inspiring landscape on 11 hectares of farmland at the edge of Stenshuvud National Park in Kivik, Sweden, MARC provides a concentrated environment for artistic research within the field of performance. Established in 2013, MARC is a platform where performance practices, working modes, and methodologies are questioned and new work is created and shared. MARC provides the opportunity for dance choreographers and practitioners to focus on specific research questions. MARC has an interest in interdisciplinary collaboration and welcomes other disciplines with a relationship to live performance to the center for residencies each year.

Milvus Artistic Research Center, (MARC) opens its doors to the public in April, 2014 with its first artist in residence Benoît Lachambre (http://www.parbleux.qc.ca/).

In honor of the opening we would like to invite you to two free open studio showings with Benoît Lachambre and Rachel Tess in MARC’s studio/performance space, April 3rd and 4th, 6pm-­‐7pm. The artists will present their new work These are bodies, These are motions, This is the place. There will be a post showing reception where you will have a chance to talk with the artists about the new work they have created and the center.

In a landscape of palpable textures the performers navigate the link between inner body and tangible object; animating the inanimate through an exploration of the senses. Skin becomes canvas, bodies become abstracted, glimpses of the recognizable are sometimes present, and the byproduct of contact with the outer environment is an acoustic/rhythmic transmission of the sensuous.

Letting be, being with, and sensing the profundity of silence allows the performers to refer unobtrusively to the complexities of human relationships.

The audience is a vital part of the shifting landscape. Alternating between lounging, sitting, standing, and relocating in search of the desired vantage point, the audience is shaped by the choreography.

Performances of These are bodies These are motions This is the place are scheduled for the fall of 2014. The work is produced by Rachel Tess Dance (Oregon, United States) with support from Par B.L.eux (Montreal, Canada). It was developed during a one-month residency at Milvus Artistic Research Center (MARC) in Skåne, Sweden with support from Skåne Region, Simrishamn’s Kommun, and Konstnärsnamden.

I am pleased to announce that MARC (Milvus Artistic Research Center) will open its doors this March with our first artist in residence Benoît Lachambre. The center is a long-term project I have established with support from the region of Skåne in Sweden and the municipality of Simrishamn in Kivik, Sweden. The center will serve as a space for artistic research within the field of performance as well as a base for RTD. Stay tuned for posts as we finish construction on our studio and commence with the first residency.

Opening events include:

-One open rehearsal day March 28th, 12-4pm (visitors can drop by un- announced during these times).

-Two open studio showings with Benoît Lachambre and Rachel Tess in MARC’s studio/performance space, April 3rd and 4th, 6pm-7pm.

-Post showing reception beginning at 7pm on both evenings.

-Movement workshops open to the public TBA shortly on the website.

All events take place at:

MARC, Gladeholm/Kivik 27735 (SE)

About the Center

With one indoor studio/performance space, living accommodations, and an inspiring landscape on 11 hectares of farmland at the edge of Stenshuvud National Park in Kivik, Sweden, MARC provides a concentrated environment for artistic research within the field of performance. Three times a year we invite collaborators and individual artists to participate in up to one-month residencies at the center. Artists are invited to share their work at open-studio showings during the residency period.

MARC is a platform where performance practices, working modes, and methodologies are questioned and new work is created and shared. MARC provides the opportunity for dance choreographers and practitioners to focus on specific research questions. MARC has an interest in interdisciplinary collaboration and welcomes other disciplines with a relationship to live performance to the center for residencies each spring.

For more information on the center and applications for the artist in residency program go to www.milvusart.se.

MARC, artist in residence house, Kivik, Sweden

Rachel Tess Dance is a platform for interdisciplinary contemporary dance collaborations based in Portland, Oregon and Kivik, Sweden.